


in the morning there are more mountains to climb

by starlineshine



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fluff and Angst, Gen, I really don't know where this is going actually like i have no idea where this is going, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Sansa-centric, Sibling Bonding, Sorta.. - Freeform, Uncertain pairings, like everyone is tv show age, like i really have no clue..
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-06-25
Packaged: 2019-10-28 03:01:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17779334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starlineshine/pseuds/starlineshine
Summary: Sansa Stark is watching from the crowds with blood on her face and dirt in her hair when her father’s head is cut off.(Or: Sansa escapes. Arya does not.)





	1. these are all omens you are soon to forget

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Velveteen](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10732077) by [letscallitink](https://archiveofourown.org/users/letscallitink/pseuds/letscallitink). 



> I started this fic because I was haunted by an AU idea. what if sansa escaped king's landing and arya was the one left behind? i really dont know where it's going yet thanks for reading

**SANSA: I**

Queen Cersei looks like she’d walked from a fairytale into Winterfell’s gates and Sansa stares at the elaborately braided hair piled up on her head and at the shining silk of her skirts and at the glowing sunshine seemingly just below the skin and at the mild expression of discomfort flitting along her face when her beautiful _beautiful_ shoes touch on the damp earth as she steps from her royal carriage. She’s clenching her fists, nails digging unclean crescents into her palms, to keep from shaking. Sansa’s never been more nervous in her life. To think—the _King_ and the _Queen_ and the _Prince_ here to see _her_. All day she’d been in a huff, a sort of frantic restlessness, consuming herself with fretting over Arya’s messy hair and Bran’s muddy trousers. She can only look at Queen Cersei for a few moments at a time. It is as though Winterfell has always been clouded and shadowed and dark, and Queen Cersei and her carriage and her skirts and her fair skin and her fine hair is a walking sunbeam, flashing into Winterfell’s grey. Queen Cersei walks from a fairytale into Sansa’s line of sight and Sansa’s heart goes racing like the wings of a hummingbird.

(Sansa has never seen a hummingbird, not outside of faded library texts. It’s been summer all her life, but the summer runs cold in the north. She’d once spent each night pouring over them, awake into the weak hours of morning with candles wasting alongside her, fingers tracing the figures of animals the north would never see and royalty she would never meet. It made the world feel simultaneously larger than ever and so, so small.)

Queen Cersei is beautiful. King Robert is not.

King Robert isn’t as Sansa expects. Father had made him sound like something mystical, made it seem as though men would kill for the chance to fight for the shining Robert Baratheon. Sansa examines him with the same air of a knight examining an improperly maintained sword. It doesn’t look right—King Robert, with dark, greying hair and a flask in his hand and a matte crown forced over his brow standing next to Queen Cersei and her golden children.

It sends a sting through Sansa’s chest, echoing down from her stomach to her ankles and back up to her head. She’s always thought kings would be something magical, some special breed of holy creature. King Robert is nothing like what Sansa’s been waiting for.

“Ned,” he chortles, legs swinging from his horse and hitting the ground hard enough to send a pinch of cold dirt up in a small splatter. Something Sansa cannot place crosses Queen Cersei’s face. “You’ve gotten fat!”

Sansa bristles, can feel the way her siblings do the same. Father’s face is expressionless. “He’s one to talk,” Arya mutters. Sansa shoots her a warning glance; no matter the words spoken, he is their king. Sansa knows her place as a young lady of Winterfell. Arya meets Sansa’s disapproval with a sneer.

It’s fair. Sansa doesn’t disagree with her sister’s statement. Still, she rolls her eyes in a way she hopes conveys something patronizing or careless.

King Robert laughs loudly, the sound a shock as it pinches apart what was near silence. Sansa’s back straightens from discomfort. He pulls Father into a hug, face broken with his smile. Everything about him feels as though meant to set Sansa on edge. He isn’t what she expected. He isn’t what she expected at all. Queen Cersei, the princes Joffrey and Tommen, princess Myrcella and the Kingsguard—this all is up to par. They are all golden and shiny and beautiful and everything Sansa has longed for, everything she’s always wanted from the south. Princess Myrcella has her hair down, flowers pinned delicately along her curls, her small hands clasped together left over right; little Tommen is peeking at them from behind Queen Cersei, eyes bright, his stubby toddler fingers clutching at Queen Cersei; Prince Joffrey looking every inch a royal on his glossy mare. Queen Cersei herself is the same maiden Old Nan speaks of, the one Sansa had pretended to be in childhood games, the one who smiles like sunshine and steps like a dancer and marries a knight and has run ins with dragons. Queen Cersei and her children are beautiful.

Sansa quietly curses the dirt she knows is under Arya’s fingernails, shame rising in her when she thinks of Jon’s messy hair. She thinks, suddenly, wildly, that she doesn’t belong with them; she belongs in the royal party and King Robert should be drinking himself away somewhere in Wintertown and she should be clean and beautiful. She blinks, hard, eyes pinching. It’s a wild thought and leaves a stale feeling along Sansa’s mind, sends a curl of shame along her spine. Her home is here, with Father and Lady and Robb and Mother and Arya and Bran and Rickon and even Jon. They belong in Winterfell, together.

Her dreams of the south are only dreams.

“Cat!” King Robert pushes off Father to bring a hand to Mother’s chin.

“Your grace,” Mother offers.

“And your children,” King Robert breathes, releasing Mother to loom over Robb. He sounds almost reverent. “You must be Robb.” He nods seriously, Robb looking at him. “A good name. A strong one, too.”

Robb murmurs a thanks, head bowing. Sansa thinks it strange to see Robb looking so. Her brother has never been one to bow, not even to Father. King Robert goes down the line, muttering different praises upon her siblings and roughly ruffling Bran’s hair. When the king attempts the same with Rickon, her little brother attempts to bite his hand. Were it anyone other than Robert Baratheon, Sansa would respond to the action with fond scolding. Mother makes a restrained noise of horror; Rickon’s only six, but it’s lucky the king takes no offense. When he looks at Sansa he only nods his head in what seems to be approval, the way Father does when the glass gardens produce an adequate harvest, and then—

“You’re a pretty one! What’s your name?”

“Arya,” her sister bites out, rough mannered even to the king. King Robert laughs. Sansa bites her own tongue to keep her face from twisting. Arya, pretty? There’s nothing _pretty_ about _Arya_.

“She's a wild one,” he says to Father knowingly. It sets Arya’s face warping—she can’t hold one mere inch of composure, not even in front of the king—but the king isn't looking at her any longer. He puts a hand on Father’s shoulder, leaning in close enough to kiss him. The thought sends Sansa’s nose wrinkling.

“Aye, that she is,” Father agrees. The king waves a hand in dismissal, the topic of Arya now far behind him.

“Take me to her, Ned,” King Robert urges. Sansa, were she a better girl, would have felt shame for her eavesdropping. “It’s been years. I must see her.”

Queen Cersei comes forward, a delicate hand rising and fluttering cautiously above King Robert’s shoulder. “Come now, it’s been such a long journey—”

“Take me to her,” King Robert says again, louder. _To who?_ The only friend of his in the north is Father. “Take me to Lyanna.”

_Oh._

“The dead rest,” Queen Cersei presses. “So should we.”

The king doesn't spare her a glance, and Sansa's stare follows Father and King Robert to further inside Winterfell, down to the crypts. King Robert is old now, and married, but Sansa would not be shocked if he still felt sadness for her dead aunt. _The dead rest,_ Queen Cersei had said. The man Father’d beheaded two nights ago would disagree. Sansa thinks of his face, tries to compare it to with Queen Cersei’s sharp features. She thinks of his head and his bloody neck.

She wrinkles her nose, one hand brushing at her skirts. It’s rather unladylike to think such things.

.

Sansa lays in bed for hours after Father tells her they're going to King’s Landing and she’s probably going to marry a prince and then become queen and her future goodmother is from a fairytale. She’s awake for hours, eyes wide and one hand on Lady’s head, thumb going back and forth over soft fur. She's leaving Winterfell and that's what she's been longing for so why is her stomach curling over itself?

She releases a breath, sitting up and disturbing Lady. Sansa runs a hand over her glossy fur as an apology, leaning down to kiss her nose. She loves Lady in a way she can't explain, loves her rich amber eyes and large paws and pink nose. “I love you,” Sansa breathes, pressing another kiss to Lady’s head. She feels an unexplainable urge to say it again, to repeat the words with her lips pressed to Lady’s fur over and over. _I love you I love you I love you._ The words burn on her tongue, sizzle like meat. _I love you I love you I love you._ “We’ll be alright, won't we?”

Lady makes a noise, deep in her throat, a sort of soft rumble. Sansa releases a breath, pushing thick blankets off her body, feet pushing over the edge of her bed. Lady wiggles, confused at the movement, and Sansa reaches out, one hand going down Lady’s side. The direwolf turns over, exposing her stomach, nose going into one of Sansa’s pillows. The feeling can’t be named. It isn’t maternal, isn’t sisterly—there’s something inside Sansa and when she found Lady it finally came to life.

( _Wolf,_ winter hisses, clawed hands digging at tall castle walls. _Wolf, wolf!_ )

“You stay here, Lady,” she murmurs, still absently running her fingers through Lady’s fur, pulling out the few knots she finds. Her feet touch the cold floor, instinctively flinching back toward the warmth of her bed, but Sansa won’t be sleeping tonight. “I’ll come back.”

She creeps along the hallway, her bare feet touching silently as she pads past Mother and Father’s quarters. Sansa has fits like this every now and then—unbecoming and unladylike and entirely overdramatic—where she can’t sleep and her eyes feel like feathers. Stealing cakes from the kitchens is gluttonous and rude and although she is aware of this, she does it anyway. The habit developed as a way to calm Rickon with treats when he came to her at night, face red from tears and his untrained tongue attempting to explain the intricacies of whatever nightmare he’d been shaken with. Now her purpose is far less noble.

Sansa feels shame coil deep in her stomach, lemon cake going into her mouth and leaving crumbs along the corners of her lips. She only takes these little bouts in the dark, the kitchens silent and a hint of moonlight slating in through a half covered window, the shine dying in the matte stone of the main oven. She always takes these secrets in darkness and silence and when the light of a lantern invades her binge Sansa’s muscles go tight. Her eyes flare up, hands going tense enough that she drops the lemon cake; it slips through her pale fingers and cracks on the floor, splitting in two crumbly pieces on the stone.

Her head jerks to the lantern and then to the hand holding it and then to Jon Snow’s vaguely guilty dark eyes. “What are you doing awake?” Sansa demands sharply, words bloodied and sharp and any hint of concern vanishes out of his face to be replaced with indignation.

“What are _you_ doing awake?” Jon—her bastard brother her largest critic her mother’s _shame_ —barks back. “And stealing,” he adds, accusatory. Her entire body goes up in flame, hands tightening into fists and her tongue stinging with the barest remaining taste of lemon cake.

“Stealing,” she echoes, disbelieving, angry enough to spit and defensive enough to send her words out like embers. “Stealing—in my own home? How dare you!”

“I’m not the one sneaking lemon cakes in the night,” Jon says and he’s right but it isn’t like she’s not allowed to eat them. It isn’t like they aren’t hers. It’s nearly impossible to get lemon cakes in Winterfell; Sansa knows the two lemon trees in the glass gardens, the ones she likes to dance under when it’s sunny enough to splash past the grey sky—Sansa knows Father keeps them for her.

“I live here,” Sansa growls, her voice low and something dark curling in her. She’s standing now taking steps towards Jon with a threat to her body she’s never held before and she’s only fourteen, five years younger than Jon, but she’s a tall girl and if she wanted to she could rub her nose against her bastard brother’s. “I am a trueborn daughter of Winterfell, bastard,” she snarls and there’s always been something dark and cruel in her. Sansa’s a soft girl, a gentle girl; before she’d been gifted with Lady, she would catch birds and teach them to sing with her. Sansa’s a soft girl—a gentle girl.

But there’s something cruel in her. There’s venom in her now that she hasn’t had since Jon placed Lady into her arms and Mother was watching and Jon was holding Ghost to him like a prize and Sansa had said, “How fitting that the bastard would get the runt.”

Jon’s entire body goes cold and hard the same way it had then. “I won’t be such a grand mark of shame much longer,” he says. “Headed to the Wall.” He’s in the kitchen’s in a dark hour of morning, barefoot with eyes wild, probably awake into the dark just like her. He looks like he’d rather eat broken glass than look at her and all her anger goes out of her like blood from an open wound.

He stares at her for a time that is only maybe several seconds but feels like forever stretched between them, pulled tight around them. “I hope King’s Landing is everything you hope for,” he says, quietly. He pushes past her, shoulder against hers, and Sansa feels a strange combination of guilt, of shame, and anger.

“It will be,” she says, looking over her shoulder at him. He pauses, turns back to see her, too. She thinks of the way Mother’s eyes go cold when Jon enters a room, the way Arya has Jon and Sansa has Robb and the way Father stares at Jon as though seeing something magic, thinks of the way Mother goes stiff and strange and how there’s a deep sort of mourning in Mother, as though Jon is something dead reawakened. She thinks of the way Jon tries so hard to be Jon Stark, of his attempted manner and the way he’d once asked her if she wanted to learn to use a sword like Arya.

_How fitting that the bastard would get the runt._

“I’m happy for you,” he says and later she will think of these words and rip at her own skin as though it is poisonous but now it infuriates her, fills her with a sort of rage she can’t imagine. _I’m happy for you._ She doesn’t need his happiness; she doesn’t even want it. His hand goes around the handle of the lantern and her own hand raises, flutters as though it wishes to go over his and hold him there.

_Half brother,_ she’d want to say when Robb would start howling Jon Snow’s praises after a particularly impressive sword fight; when Robb would call him brother. _Bastard brother,_ Sansa would think, the words burning on her tongue and down her throat.

Words of apology raise in her, fluttering above her hands and along the line of her jaw; the squint of guilt makes her angrier. He’s a bastard and she’s always taken pride in herself, in her trueborn blood and her shining hair and the way her smiles flash like sunlight. She’s clever and pretty and the daughter of river and snow. She wants to apologize the way she wants to feed the stray dogs that sometimes gather outside Winterfell’s gates.

But if you feed the strays, they will never leave. And there is no place for Jon here.

So Sansa does not apologize. He’s a bastard the same way she is not. “And I hope you are happy at the Wall,” she says, and unlike Jon, she does not mean it. Jon stops, looks at her. His eyes burn through her as though she is made of ice, made of glass.

“You know, Sansa,” he says, using of her name like it’s as insult, his hand pulling the lantern upward while her own hands still twitch with the urge to _do_ something, and his words are lacking in venom and lacking in fire and she’s the worst person in the _world_ , “I don't think you do.”

(That is the last thing they will say to one another for a long time.)

Later, curled around Lady and the worst person in the world, Sansa stares out her window to the sea of glasslike snow spilling around Winterfell. She’s going south, to King’s Landing. Jon can have the Wall.

( _Wolf_ , winter whispers, fingers brushing over her arms and down her spine, along her hair and against her lips. _Wolf!_ )

Sansa closes her eyes, the sun rising behind a cloaked sky. She’s wanted to go south for as long as she can remember, has wanted to run in sunshine since she heard Old Nan’s first story. Jon Snow has no right to instill guilt in her. He has no right to belittle her for saying the truth. He’s a bastard. Jon can have the fucking Wall. She’s going to be queen.

.

The first time she sees King’s Landing, rising against the grey sky like a pillar, like something holy, Sansa feels the pull more than she can explain. Her hand stays buried in Lady’s thick fur, sweat collecting along her thick dress sleeves, eyes pinned to the distant palace as though held there by wire.

Prince Joffrey, who she is to marry, follows her line of sight. He’s handsome and a prince and he only ever compliments her. Were they to marry, and they are, Sansa would still be Sansa and he would be her Lord. She finds she doesn't know him and that she doesn't care. Nothing in Sansa’s life has ever fallen to disaster and she has faith, now, that she will be alright. His face seems to twist, warping in a way implying it hasn't been intentional, that perhaps his natural facial expression is a sneer, and Sansa breathes the weak breeze in. It's warm, smells like flowers and fruit and sweat.

“It's beautiful,” Sansa says, voice light and warmed with something intangible.

“Even this inn is, compared to the north,” Joffrey claims. She nods, distracted and unwilling to argue. She smiles at him. He has no love for the north, nor does his father. Sansa can imagine Father’s disappointment at her lack of defense, at her ability to step aside when her own bones and blood are being spat upon. It isn't that Sansa doesn't love her home. It isn't that she wishes to abandon it. She loves Winterfell more than she loves her own skin, but it had never been enough. Sansa longs not for power nor for names but for _adventure_. Her southern silks and excitable hairstyles had never been practical for the north. Sansa’s never cared for practicality. She’s grown on Old Nan’s stories of heroes and warriors and queens and it is all beautiful. Elegant ladies and sharpened swords and freshly brushed mares and queens with hair pulled in elaborate knots and it all is so beautiful.

Sansa wants to be beautiful.

Winterfell is as familiar to her as her own reflection. Robb, her handsome brother, the type to put a bow in her hands just to watch her tremble from the weight; Bran, grinning down at her from halfway up the tower of the Sept; Father, all swords and seriousness; Rickon with his small hands, his loud joy; Mother, made from warmth and strict smiles; Arya, burning, unexplainable, messy but proud of it; Jon, silent, with a face like Father’s and a sure hand in Arya’s disgressions; even Jeyne and Beth were ornaments Sansa grew bored with years ago.

Bored. It isn’t the right word. It makes Sansa feel guilty. Winterfell isn't the same as the rest of the seven kingdoms. There’s something harsher there. There’s something painfully honest there, a cold truth the rest of Westeros seems to escape. Jeyne can sneak her lemon cakes and Beth can turn her attention to the smith’s son, but no amount of distraction will be able to pull her eyes from the waning summer or the hissing wind, from the blunt words and slow push of her own blood. Winterfell is too sharp. This is wrong, bordering on cruel, but Winterfell isn't enough.

Besides, Sansa doesn’t want to watch anyone else be beheaded, no matter what Father says about it. She wants something beautiful. Braided hair and sunlight glowing and flowers surviving somewhere outside of Sansa’s windowsill.

It is within the hour, Lady dead and prettily braided hair forgotten, that Sansa thinks perhaps there is nothing beautiful about kings or queens.


	2. still, something just broke

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sansa always wanted to be the perfect daughter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lol this took forever!!

**SANSA: II**

Sansa finds the south is full of things to distract her from her family. She does sometimes worry about Mother and Bran and Rickon and Robb back home—Bran had still been unconscious when they’d left. Father received a letter from Mother a few weeks ago claiming he’d woken and was so far fine, but still, Sansa would like to have seen him wake herself. But in the south, with all the shiny horses and the equally shiny dresses and even her idiot handmaiden Shay, it’s easy for Sansa not to think about her family. Often the only time she thinks of them in great detail is when someone else forces her too—when Tommen asks her to give him northern stories or when Father gathers her and Arya and drives the two sisters together for some semblance of bonding. Sansa is not thinking of Arya as she and her Septa walk down one of the castle’s brick-lined paths. She is not thinking of Father, whom she hasn’t seen in several days but assumes is busy with his work. Now that the King has died, Father will doubtlessly be swamped by royal duties.

“Where is Arya?” Septa Mordane asks. On another, it would have been labeled a demand, but this is simply the Septa’s manner of speaking. The Septa requires respect, and Sansa has made a reputation since childhood of easily giving it.

Sansa glances to her Septa, skirts held lightly within her hands and her steps gentle. She barely retains an eye roll. Arya has no time for lessons, no patience for the Septa. She has never been refined. It does not matter the day nor the time. Arya makes no break for things such as schedules. She's never been able to keep herself tied down long enough for that; Arya’s always running, moving, spitting venom and sweating pride. Arya often tells Sansa she’s “too good” for boring girl things like schooling or playing the lyre.

“Probably dancing,” Sansa says, words mocking. Arya took up dancing after they reached King’s Landing. At least going south is forcing her to take up one civilized pastime. She pauses, looking at Septa Mordane, taking in the sharper lines of her face and the darker glint to her eyes. “She’s with her dance instructor every morning. She’s horrible at it,” Sansa continues, her voice losing its bite even as she keeps to reassure herself of the normalcy. Some venom manages to leak into the words, but it’s weak and halfhearted. “She always comes back covered in bruises; she’s so _clumsy—_ ”

Septa Mordane stops walking. She clutches at Sansa’s arm, stopping her, too. “Hush,” she hisses. It’s with an undertone Sansa has never heard from her before—not when Sansa accidentally pricked her own finger, not during all the times when Jon had stolen Arya away from lessons, not even when there was a minor fire in the Sept. It isn’t that Sansa has never seen anger from the Septa. Septa Mordane has never been a calm minded woman. She shouts more than she speaks. Her alarm rises swift and often.

Never like this.

Sansa’s jaw clicks closed, her skirts falling from her hands to brush against the floor.

“Go back to your room,” Septa Mordane breathes, voice below a whisper and words coming so quickly they slur together. “Bar the doors. Do not open them, Sansa. Do not open them for anyone you do not know.” Her grip on Sansa’s arm tightens. “Swear you will not open them.”

There’s something loud echoing off the chamber walls, down the corridor. Sansa has never once barred her door; not in Winterfell when she was angry enough to spit and demanded isolation, not when she was crying or when she was settled in a bath; not here, either, when no one has ever entered unannounced and she has several servants to call in on command. The mere act sounds frightening. “What is it?” Sansa’s voice shakes and she hates herself for it. “What’s happening?” She can feel her blood running hard under her skin.

“Do as I tell you,” Septa gets out, the words like sandpaper, scraping against the inside of Sansa’s chest. “Bar the doors, and do not open them!”

“I won’t!” Sansa cries, struggling to free herself from the Septa’s iron fingers. The air turns thick and heavy, falling against Sansa like acidic rainfall. Sansa can taste it, even past the beautiful hysteria of scents and sounds in King’s Landing. The Septa reaches out with her other hand and takes Sansa’s wrist, squeezes it tightly. Her eyes are so wide they’re almost all whites. Sansa stops twisting and doesn’t move, eyes going from the hall before them to Septa and back. “Run!” Septa Mordane’s voice raises just so, dropping Sansa’s wrist and arm, her wrinkled hands pushing at Sansa’s shoulders.

_Run_.

Sansa runs. She will never see Septa Mordane again.

.

When Sansa was little she tried her best to be the perfect daughter. Children seen and not heard are the most coveted children, the ideal kind of child, and so Sansa tried her best to be silent and graceful, a lady at three. Sansa learned how to be a good girl. At first it was difficult. Her fingers were too stubby and too hard to control to work well with needles. She pricked herself constantly and her embroidery attempts were horrifically ugly. It could be breathtakingly hard to hold her tongue. The servant girls laughed and played amongst themselves all day and Sansa frequently wanted to join them. But the perfect daughter is silent and undemanding. The perfect daughter finishes her plate at meals and does not ask for seconds.

It isn’t that Sansa didn’t love her siblings. She did—even dumb Arya. But she remembers when she was very small, begging petulantly for her mother’s attention (I’m hungry! I’m cold! I’m bored! I’m tired! Mama, Mama, Mama!) and having it be denied, remembers peeking inside Mother’s chambers from around the thick wooden door and seeing Mother curled up around an infant Arya. Mother was busy with her new baby, cooing down at the little girl, and Father was busy with Winterfell, and Robb was busy with their bastard half-brother Jon, so Sansa was by herself. She wanted to sob, or scream; something to demand Mother’s notice. But she’d already tried that in the first place, and it hadn’t worked.

Sometimes there wasn’t enough time for everyone. Sansa would be the perfect daughter, and then there would be time for her. She loved her siblings very much, but around Bran’s birth she realized there were too many of them. If Sansa wasn’t perfect, Mother would never attend to her. Being a good daughter wasn’t easy. Jeyne and Beth made things a bit easier. They were her friends, and so she could be only a girl rather than trying her best to be graceful and poised. But Aryra didn’t try at all to be a good daughter or even a passable one, and Father paid her plenty heed anyway. Sansa learned art and music and sewing and embroidery and dancing, and Aryra just messed about shooting badly aimed arrows and swinging around a sword too heavy for her to fully lift.

Between the two of them, Sansa thought, Arya was clearly the inferior daughter. And yet no one seemed to care—Arya was praised for the blood on her knees in the same volume as Sansa was praised for studies in literature. It wasn’t fair. Sansa bit the lip on her cries, held herself tall, did her hair up the way true ladies did, and it felt for nothing. She held back impolite glares and many a time held her tongue on insults for her siblings, tried desperately not to appear glutinous even were she hungry. Maybe none could see how much an effort she was putting forth. But the true perfect daughter is perfect effortlessly, and so it would be demeaning to the endeavor to call attention to her tribulations.

When Mother first got pregnant, Sansa had asked her, “Why do you need more babies when you got Robb an’ me?”

Mother smiled down at her, the perfect Lady of Winterfell, and said, “Don’t you want a little brother or sister?”

It didn’t seem very well-bred to say she didn’t want any more siblings, actually, Robb was more than enough, so Sansa said yes, of course she did, and by the time Bran was born she found she meant it. Robb was getting too old to play with her, too busy to dote on her. Bran might be a terrible menace, and Rickon too young to know not to be wild, and Arya messy and unrefined, but they were still Sansa’s siblings, and could be fun. Still, even though she knew she was trying firmly to be the perfect daughter and even though she knew her the births of her siblings did not reflect badly on her and even though she loved her siblings very much, it felt strange, as though she had failed her parents somehow, as though she were inadequate and obsolete. She could be a perfect daughter but she wasn’t enough.

Once, a few years ago, when she’d gotten in trouble for insulting Aryra and was being scolded, Mother sighing at her, looking exhausted by it all, saying, “Why can you not just be kind to her? She’s your younger sister, Sansa,” completely ignoring Arya’s own faults, the way Arya steals Bran’s bow to practice shooting and the way Arya bribes Jon to teach her swordplay, Sansa thought, _I don’t belong here. I don’t belong in the north._ The thought shamed her. How cruel must she be, to wish she were anywhere but home?

But after the admonishing was finished, on the mortifying walk to her cell, Sansa saw Robb and Jon and Arya all playing together in the courtyard, and the shame withered in her chest. The last time Sansa had been allowed to play like that, tumbling about in the dirt, she couldn’t have even seen her sixth nameday yet. It wasn’t fair.

Sansa was no northwoman.

.

There are Lannister men everywhere and Sansa does not listen to her Septa. She does not go back to her room; she does not bar the doors. Halfway there she sees a flash of armor and rather than be relieved to have found a savior she became so inexplicably terrified she flung herself into the gardens, burying herself under a bush. 

_I can tell the Queen,_ Sansa thinks, desperately, pushing through the needle-like branches before finally managing to come out the other side of it, faces itching from tiny scratches. _I can tell my father—_

But she hasn’t seen Father in days. What if he’s in danger? Surely, Sansa tries to reason with herself, the Queen won’t allow anything to happen to him. But what about Lady? Queen Cersei’s flashing eyes buzz to life in Sansa’s head, and Joffrey’s voice somewhere between a whine and a howl plays back in her ears. She thinks of her direwolf, dead in the south with Nymeria somewhere in the woods. Sansa thinks of Lady, less than a year old and so warm and beautiful and good and loving. Sansa thinks of Lady, pulls herself up from the ground in the gardens, and she runs.

The garden is blocked off by its encircling border of palace walls, but it empties into a vast courtyard, Sansa’s eyes wild when she spills out into it, into the open landscape. At first Sansa feels relieved—the courtyard isn’t enclosed. She can run into the trees and wait there until she stops crying and by then it will be all sorted out and Father will come look for her and everything will be fine. But when she looks out at the square, she realizes the few lumps in the distance are not badly designed decorations but bodies. Sansa’s breath catches, struggling against the sudden block in her throat. The look of them—the four bodies—causes bile to rise in her throat and she forces her feet to step around them. She ducks under a low hanging branch, scanning at the distance. The woods splay in front of her, trees heavy with leaves and sky a darkening grey. They’re small woods; she remembers that from the tour, when she’d first arrived into King’s Landing. They lead out into the town and the peasant streets. She gifts herself a moment she cannot afford, hand against the courtyard wall—and—

And—

A hand closes on her ankle, fingers digging into her skin. Sansa stares at him, the dying man she’d thought a corpse. He’s dressed in Lannister red, outfitted in foot soldier armor, eyes crazed and hand sticky with blood as it presses to her skin. “Let me go,” Sansa whispers, leg pulling so hard her knee feels it intends to unattach from her thigh. “Let me go,” she says again, more on frightened instinct than with any true power.

The man stares at her, his fingers bruising her ankle. “You’re Sansa Stark, aren’t you?” he asks. Sansa knows this must all be some massive mistake. Her father will come soon to set all of it right. She doesn’t have to be afraid. He won’t hurt her. Something horrible must have happened to these men, but it doesn’t involve her. She tells herself this several times, but she is still terrified.

“Let me go!” she cries, yanking her foot away and managing only to fall, hands clawing at dirt, the man pulling at her ankle to drag her closer to him. Her fingers scramble, her free foot kicking at his face, and her hand closes around the steady handle of a blade. She isn't thinking of it when the edge of a knife nips into the flesh of his neck in a clumsy slash. Blood spits from the wound, lashing against her legs and layered skirts. His hand spasms around her ankle. It isn’t a very good cut. He releases her to press his palm to his throat. Sansa isn’t thinking of it when she stabs down, blade sinking between his fingers and cutting into the flesh below. She’s crying, desperately pushing at the knife. It isn’t easy to force it down against his convulsing, protesting body. She rips the knife free and scrambles backwards, stopping only when her back hits a tree trunk. He presses his hands against his throat and blood spills out from under them. He watches her while he does it, wheezing, slumping back against the ground. After a few eternities his fingers stop scrambling against his neck and he stops making noises. His eyes are still watching her.

The only sound now is her own heavy breathing, the knife still in her hand. It isn’t heavy, but her arms feel weak. Her hands shake, fingers twitching in their grip. The saliva under her tongue feels enough to choke her. Her legs stand without her command, the steel limp in her tight fingers.

( _“What is it? What's happening?”_ )

Sansa closes her eyes. She doesn't think about it she can't he's dead she can't think of it she can _not_. She holds the metal blade like it's something animate and not a Lannister weapon used to kill a Lannister man. The few steps out into the mess of thin trees take years, the task leaving her pained.

_Run!_

The trees are nothing like the Godswood. The grassy land is too light, too thin, and foreign to her. Sansa clutches the knife and runs. Her skirts catch on branches, feet stumbling on tree roots. Her hair has gone lost from its braids, tangling and so bright. She thinks of Robb and Father and Arya and Bran and Rickon and Mother and even Jon and she runs.

It’s hot and humid, sun shining bright enough to hurry putrid rot, and Sansa trips into the dirt, steel flashing from her hands and falling, loud. Something is smeared on her face. She's lost the day to the trees, and now there is no sun. She searches the sky for the moon, neck stinging from how sharply she must arch. She forces herself back to her feet.

She can see the lights of the peasant street now. The trees pour out into an alleyway. She can’t see anyone, but she still stays hidden in the shadow of a tree. In the dark, with noises of dogs and swords ringing through the wood, Sansa’s body shakes from the force of her tears. A scream rises in her throat. She bites her tongue to quell it. She starts to rip at herself, pulling harshly on the chain of her necklace until it breaks, tumbling to the tree roots as though it hadn’t cost Father several horses. Her smooth hands tug at her skirts, pulling on the southern born cloth, seams popping impossibly loudly in the dark quiet. Her hands search for the knife, fingers cutting on the blade before she can find the grip, and she cuts at her dress as violently as she can manage. Her hands are bloody and her face is wet. Sansa wants to scream until her throat burns.

If she screams, they will find her.

( _“Lady didn’t bite anyone! She’s good!”_ )

She does not scream.

Sansa wipes at her face and hair and only manages to further stain both. She’d fled the palace and killed a man and she can't let them find her. Where is Father? Where’s her father? She wipes at her face again, and again manages only to cover more of her cheeks in mud. She is Sansa Stark, born of winters and rivers, raised surrounded by snow and sharpness. She’s always been Sansa Stark.

Now she feels as though she is nothing. She’s dirty, her dress ruined, her hair messed and her trinkets broken. If the Septa had been right to be afraid, if the man from the courtyard had a reason for gripping her ankle harsh enough it has bruised, someone might be looking for her. She’s no idea of her father, nor Arya. She’d abandoned them, abandoned King’s Landing—for dirt.

Her body shakes. It is too warm here for her to sleep.

(Sansa wishes desperately for Lady. But Lady is dead, and Sansa is alone.)

.

Sansa bites her tongue, feeling bodies pushing against her from nearly every side in the mess gathering in front of the sept. Only the knife, wrapped in cloth and hidden under the remains of her skirts, gives her any semblance of comfort. _The hand of the king,_ a boy had said. It looks like it could be the palace from this far. Joffrey’s face flashes in her mind, mouth sneering and his hand tight around her wrist.

(“I am loyal to my beloved Joffrey,” another girl from another time murmurs, demure and afraid and nothing at all the way a wolf should be no matter the lions surrounding her.

Something inside Sansa rings with pain.)

Her back presses hard against a statue, spine curving backwards onto the stone pedestal. The covered edge of her stolen knife bites gently at her hip, the grip of it pushing painfully against her stomach. There are people everywhere, the talking loud enough to push into Sansa’s ears. Another man’s back goes against her, sweat staining the cloth of his shirt. “Confess,” someone says from up on the sept; the words are like hands on Sansa’s skin. The talking around her starts to quiet, starts to dim, everyone trying to get a good glimpse of the sept. She recoils, feet rising and then she’s pushed against the statute, heart racing like the bird Cersei claims her to be.

“I am Eddard Stark,” Sansa hears, and she hides against the statue base.

“They’re going to kill him,” someone a little bit in front of her says, mystified. It inspires a new rage over the crowd. Even though the people at the raised platform of the sept must still be speaking, Sansa can’t discern what they’re saying, can’t tell over the roar of townspeople. She clings to the statue, eyes squinted, managing just to peek over the heads in front of her. It’s her father on his knees up there. Someone throws something; it hits Father, and Sansa feels a sharp pang in her own body from the force of it. Father’s mouth moves with words beyond her, not loud enough to rise over the crowd. Arya’s shouting something. She’s in a dress for once. Men Sansa doesn’t recognize are holding her back.

“Joffrey Baratheon is a bastard of incest,” Father shouts over the crowd and Sansa wants to shout back _so what? Who cares if he is? The throne has only belonged to Baratheon’s for a generation and it only belonged to the Targaryens for a couple longer and before that it didn’t exist at all; what good is birthright or honor in a place like this? Father, this isn’t worth dying for! Father, Father!_ “Born from Cersei and Jaime Lannister!” _Father, Father!_ “He is not the rightful king!” _Father, Father, save me! Father!_

The crowd explodes.

Joffrey’s impossibly small from so far away and Sansa can’t stand to look at him, can’t stand to examine his face for the familiar sneer or perhaps the rage. His mouth opens, his voice only joining the chaos of noise with Arya screams. The screaming is so loud and so violent—Sansa lets her own voice escape into the mess of it. Her father her father she doesn’t know what words are coming from her mouth only that she is letting noise spill free. “Bring me his head!” Joffrey howls, shrieks, and Sansa can hardly breathe past the dirt smeared on her face, can hardly see over the cloth she'd torn from her skirt and tied messily over her hair. She knows nothing except that she is screaming and Arya is screaming and Father looks up and Sansa’s eyes _burn_ and the man who passes the sentence is to swing the sword but Joffrey holds no blade and she _screams_ and—

Sansa Stark is watching. She is watching when her father’s head is cut off.

It’s as though the entire world ceases to exist. Silence falls nowhere but inside Sansa’s mind. Her mouth opens and she does not speak. Her legs shake but she does not move. Her father’s head is somewhere along the cobblestone. She can see Arya from here, can see her small sister with her lips spread in a scream. Arya _screams_.

Sansa cannot hear her. The world is separated from her by panels of glass. Someone too far to recognize is holding Arya’s arms behind her back.

A tear goes down Sansa’s cheek. She does not feel it. It is as though her face has become stone; the drop falls, and shatters. She is still staring at her father’s headless body, at the blood and his shoulders and he is dead. She can still see it when she shrinks back into the mess of people, shoulders hunched and mouth drawn tight. She feels dirty with grease and even dirtier with the knowledge of what she has done. What she has allowed. She thinks of Father's body his neck the way his hands spasmed even as his head hit the stone.

Behind her, Arya does not stop screaming.

Sansa doesn’t look back.


End file.
